this & this

"In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."

- Nietzsche

set

The night seems more sacred to me, somehow, than the day. The day is empty with calendar; anxious. The night stretches into the forever-future. It is a place for living and holds no finishing line.

In all this convict, still, I need the sun.

So: I have been shocked by my own eyes. Mirror showing them carved in frozen Arabics from my insistently wandered carpet-fueled dreams. These hieroglyphics seem no worthy trade-off for productivity (or at least, for restless peace).

I have seen my skin, in passive outcry, imitate sun-ripped fly-shit speckled ceilings. The carriers of my second selves have gripped tight in defiance, wrenching me into irregularity or nil. My arms and stomach have mimicked face with small heated secrets. My lowest sense has cried out at me too; cried, What are you doing? and wept at my stubborn decisions. Not that I have cared. I have not listened to any of these bodily protests.

So: I have been shocked by my own eyes. All the tea bags in the world cannot save them. The newest paper sends them red; the clattering baking trays send me wandering into the night. Having adopted medicine, my insides full of malice practice reverse psychology and wash rivers out of me; though giving me my own face back I am still sent into cathartic doubling at the ribs as soon as I am bleeding. No compensation at all. It seems the more I do well for myself, the more I am reprimanded when I deviate. All the daily poisons become more poisonous the longer I abstain.

Like the guilty conscience that has haunted me since childhood, the fourth and the ninth commandments ally. Leaving me wondering, Where do nocturnal animals get their vitamin D? 

from this morning

I woke this morning and knew that I had dreamed:
    Of some foreign forearm grazing my side; phantom lips not quite kissing but sort-of gently rested next to mine; my face huddled somewhere near a strangely angled neck; and the body of the world all around us.

coffee
tea
sugar
movie
music
words
adrenaline
awake

common

after Leon, Joe,
I swear I saw the salt creep into your live eyes
the same: the day I split myself from spitting Matilda's lover
having, until then, split for

(though, forgiven -- easy to mishear
as Gus and Gwil hold your voice in their throats, too)

Ms, too
whispered to me like a gun in my mouth
being dragged willfully around this lemon-condensed apartment
I would
and her prickled pre-pubescent legs dangled into my taut throat

who did she give herself too, in that pink dress?

boy barely mutters the word 'snatch'
-- so,
how did you snatch yourself from...
I suppose, he the old man
but then goes from ember to soot-stained pillows

but how did she exit those eight quiet gestures?
(under her concrete-sodden pillow, of course)
shit them all, beautiful

beauty left no good
stripped in waves,
or something.

Comes the new man.

...but surely, subtle hands need leed, too 
even new

thus man (boy)
snatches snatch's vowels in grenade-pinned honour
knighted common
'til the bloodflow leaks of all the buildings we've traversed
marking all those who are and refuse to be 

(come on)
still in hand, and head
there's silence without applause
slighted wrongly, adverse 
and then hearts (subtle lead)

man wails -- 
with no good to remain
but stripped in waves:
something

banter / ted-y bear

"...and then I started watching TED talks instead of having sex," she explains to me. "So in the end, it was fine. I became educated." The corners of her mouth stretch horizontal. She picks up her coffee cup. "And really, that's what men prefer anyway. Someone who knows things about the world, you know?"

Jesus, I think.

"Yeah probably," I say.

She places the coffee cup back into its saucer and sneaks one - nope, two - sugar packets out of the glass in the centre of the table.

"You know, I've been reading a lot about all those artificial sweeteners," she carries on, "and I think-- they're actually much worse for you than just real sugar. I mean, sugar is a plant -- right? It's a plant. Why on earth would you choose a chemical over a plant? That's just--"

"Well, I suppose--"

"Ridiculous."

"Well... Well I don't know, really."

"Neither did I until a few weeks ago. Seriously, I thought that I was being really healthy. You know, cutting out all my sugar. But it turns out -- I read this online, on this nutrition blog that I follow -- it turns out that actually sugar isn't as bad for you as aspartame--"

"As what?"

"Aspartame -- and yet, most of those diet soft drinks are chocka full of the stuff. It's really, really bad for you. Really bad. Like, it could kill a cat. A small kitten. You know?"

"Chihuahua cat."

"Exactly! So there's all these women -- well, men too, I suppose -- men and women... Sorry, women and men." She pauses. "People. There's all these people wandering around-- well, they're-- anyway they're going through their lives, truly believing that they're doing a good thing. But actually, they're more or less putting poison into their bodies."

"Do you miss the sex, though?" I ask her.

She places her spoon down parallel to the table edge.

"What?"

"Pardon," I correct her. "Do you miss the sex?" My spine moves back into the chair slightly.

"I... Well yeah, of course." She looks down at her coffee. "But good things have come out of it, you know? I mean, a year is a long time doing the same thing. The same person. Sorry that came out wrong. You know what I mean. Anyway. It's a long time. Well, not at our age, I know. Well I suppose not in general, really -- but it's still a long time. In terms of doing something you're not fully into."

Her eyes follow a guy to the till. He looks a mature twenty.

"The thing is, Natalie." Her eyes return back to me and she looks me very squarely in the eyes. She puts her elbows and palms down flat so that her forearms are running in my direction across the table. "I am a better person now. I am my own person. Now, I am ready for a proper relationship. I wasn't before. That is why it didn't work out."

She reclines back into her chair, point made.

"Well it worked for a year..." I offer.

"It worked for a year. But I want more than 'worked'. I want-- I want..." Her eyes search the ceiling: "--all kinds of things. Maybe some of them are a little unrealistic. But I have high ideals now. Ideals that could only have come from this break up." Hands groping the coffee cup again. Groping. Groping.

I tell her, "You're groping your cup."

"What?"

"Pardon."

"What am I doing?"

"Pardon you. You're groping the coffee cup," I say.

"What do you mean, groping?"

"I mean you're groping the mug. Like, the way you're holding it. That's not normal. Most people don't hold their cups like that; that's why it's got a handle."

She looks down at her grip. Back at me. Tips her head down slightly.

"I think you're over-analysing this."

"I'm not, I promise."

"You are definitely over-analysing this."

"I really don't think I am," I assert. "I'm not. I don't over-analyse!"

This is probably not true. I feel a little bit bad.

"Hey, sorry. I didn't even say anything. Like, I'm not telling you that you groping your coffee cup means something particular or anything like that. I'm just saying: you're groping your coffee cup and most people don't do that."

She squints her eyes, shakes her slowly head side to side and squeezes the words out of her mouth. "You -- are -- such -- a -- shit," she says.

I shift in my chair. "Oh honestly, Cassie, don't talk to me like that."

"Like what?!"

I look at her, straight on. "Don't call me a shit."

"Well you are." She shuffles in her chair now, lengthens her back. "You're being a shit."

I tip my head sideways. "Well thanks."

Then there's temporary silence. I turn my eyes to follow the direction of my head, profile to her; I see out of my peripheral Cassie turns her gaze the opposite way.

After a moment I ask her, "Who are you looking at?"

"I'm not looking at anyone."

"You are. I can tell."

"I'm not."

"Is it a guy? Who are you looking at?"

"Look, Natalie--"

"No, who are you looking at..."

"I don't have to be looking at someone, okay? Maybe I'm just... thinking."

"Oh yeah? About what?"

"I'm just thinking, ok? Not that I can, when you keep friggen scrutinizing how I'm holding my goddamn coffee."

She levels her head back to face me across the table.

"I told you, men like women who think about the world." More of that awful shuffle-shuffle-lengthen-spine. "I'm thinking about the world."

"Oh. Sure."

She just shakes her head at me.

"Such a shit."

"Yup. Got it."

We have a miniature staring competition. Neither of us wins. Or loses.

"So what are you doing with the rest of your day?" she asks my pupils.

"Nothing," they tell her.

"That's pretty fucking boring."

"I'm a pretty boring person."

"Mm, don't know why I bother actually."

"Bother what? Bother informing me about the dangers of sugar?"

"It's--"

"Ranting about your sex life."

"Natalie--"

"I feel a bit voyeuristic with you sitting there groping your cup, actually.."

"Natalie!"

"What?"

"Pardon," she corrects me.

"Touche," I shrug. "What, though?"

She looks down at her gropey fingers.

"Man. We both really need to get laid, huh."

"Yeah." I lower my eyes to bury my secrets into the floor. Cassie thinks.

"But only with the right person though. For me, I mean - you can do what you like. But I'm not settling for anyone who doesn't match at least six of my ten basic relationship sensitivities list--"

"Your what, now...?"

"That's the absolute minimum. Maybe if he was really hot... No. No, six. At least six."

"You are crazy Cassie."

"Hah! At least I'm not a shit."

I shrug again.

"I don't think I'm a shit."

"You are."

"Ok."

"But not in a bad way."

"Sure."

"I still love you."

"Great, thanks for that."

"I do. I really love you, Natalie. Even though you are a shit."

"My god girl, mixed messages--!"

"That's possible! It's possible. I loved Mark, even though he was pretty awful sometimes. Even though he could be a shit, he was worth loving. For the most part."

"If you say so."

"I do say so. For the most part, his good outweighed his bad."

"Ah, but yes, see: There's the catch. For the most part. For the most part is not enough, is it? What did you say before-- '...more than just working...'". 

"Yeah, well that's why we--"

"I know. I know. But how do you know where that point is? The point where you say, 'TED talks are going to be more beneficial to me than you. I would rather watch a funny looking old man on my computer screen tell me things than have a nice looking young man in front of my face.'"

Cassie thinks for a moment.

"It's the point where you look at the person in front of you," she says, "but in you're head you're actually watching the TED talk."

"So instead of wondering about that person, you're wondering about the world."

"I think so," says Cassie. "Something like that."

avalon

Avalon's name is haunting me
the road home
the shitty corner bakery
(named after the road home)

her body...
she's still sleeping on my fold-out couch
tipping ash all over the front porch
dangling her smooth legs over the rotting wooden rails
cleaning up the bathroom vanity to a perfect polished white

I'd have her back, though
if her hands were clasping those small, expensive cylinders